


bird in the hand (is worth two in the bush, even if the other one wouldn't sell you to salem for one cornchip)

by viscountfrancisbacon



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, Gen, Humor, Mistaken Identity, and just a little bit of tfw you're being possessed/soulmerged with an ancient wizard, ozcar is gonna be one cool dude tho that's for sure, ozpin is shit at boundries but at least it's out of his control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 15:39:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15027803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscountfrancisbacon/pseuds/viscountfrancisbacon
Summary: - but luckily for everybody she didn't realize that was an optionoscar proves amenable to becoming a Magical Important Guy With A Destiny And Also A Wizard In His Head much sooner. somehow, this results in him chasing birds through forests and regretting his life choices just a little bit.





	bird in the hand (is worth two in the bush, even if the other one wouldn't sell you to salem for one cornchip)

**Author's Note:**

> have my one other completed rwby fic! I have a oneshot and an outlined longfic that i've begun but am frankly unlikely to finish literally any time soon, we're talking like months at least, do not wait around for those. i've been in final fantasy 15 hell since the end of janurary and i just started a new playthrough so those fires ain't stopping anytime soon, even if i liked seasons 4 and 5 a lot more than i thought i was going to. thus, oscar fic, because the whole deal with oscar & ozpin is unfortunately and perilously close to being My Fucking Jam, Holy Shit. but i ended just writing silly humor fic of him instead lmao
> 
> many thanks to BuffPidgey who didn't beta this but from whose discord DMs with this sprung from, as with a lot of our fannish ideas. She also got me to watch the rest of rwby in the first place so thanks!! you enabler!! i love it!!

A week since the voice had first spoke to him, and it was a beautiful morning on the farmstead. Oscar was weeding the vegetable garden, down on his hands and knees with a wide-brimmed hat and a gardening trowel, working patiently on the cucumber patch and listening to the voice’s gentle but relentless persuasion.

“Oscar, I know this is hard to believe, but it is the truth: our souls have been joined together and the world is grave danger. It pains me to ask this, as it was once asked of me, but you must leave your home and head to—”

The cucumbers were done. Oscar stood up, hands braced on his knees, heedless of the mud he smeared on his pants. He headed down the long rows of the garden with his bucket of weeds – for the compost pile – and his trowel, careful not to trample any of the plants.

“Okay. I’ll do it.”

“…I beg your pardon?”

There was an old table set out in the shade, covered in tools and bits of plants and the odd debris that was inevitably attracted to any otherwise-clear horizontal surface. But the important thing was his water bottle, which Oscar uncapped with relish – it was a very sunny morning on the farmstead. Though it left a weird feeling in the back of his mind, some primal sixth sense of a person behind him even though he knew there was no one there – it was the voice, waiting awkwardly for Oscar to respond.

“Sorry,” Oscar said. He wiped his mouth and reached under the table for the jug of water to refill his bottle. “I said I’ll do it. Where do you want me to go?”

The weird feeling in his mind shifted – he liked to imagine the voice was blinking at him, could picture the amusingly nonplussed expression. It was a tiny bit mean to take pleasure in that sort of thing, but in his defense, he’d spent the past week quietly wondering if he’d gone mad, which made it entirely deserved in his opinion.

Then, improbably, the image of a grin slowly spreading across someone’s face came to mind. His feeling of being watched had intensified, like the voice was looking at him particularly closely now.

“Ah—” the voice said, “I _see_. If I might be so forward, Oscar, I do believe it’s going to be very interesting becoming you.”

To be honest, it was kind of a creepy thing to say. But Oscar Pine was – by both upbringing and natural inclination – a kind and polite young man, and to be fair the sentiment _did_ track with the voice’s own (if bizarre) explanation for why he was in Oscar’s head, so he graciously decided not to take it too personally.

“It’s a little forward, but I appreciate the thought,” Oscar said out loud – weirdly, it seemed like the voice couldn’t just read his mind, or maybe it was also just polite. “I’ve gotta finish weeding the garden first, but while I’m doing that you can tell me how we’re supposed to go about saving the world.”

 

Ruby was a Huntress now – well, technically still a Huntress-in-training, she didn’t even have her provisional license yet because Beacon had fallen before the school year ended and the first year students received theirs which was _so unfair_ for _so many reasons_ , though at least most people out here accepted her student ID as proof enough of her credentials – but even so, being flagged down and told the sheriff wanted to speak to her not ten minutes after they’d arrived in the village was cause for concern. And the villager had pointed at her specifically, not just the entirety of team RNJR.

“They can probably just tell we’re Hunters,” Jaune said, cautiously optimistic in that way of his, “Maybe they’ve got a job for us?”

Nora, naturally, had something much more exciting in mind. “You don’t have a bounty on your head, do you?” She gasped. “Or maybe someone’s trying to kidnap you! The Huntress becomes the hunted!” She nodded firmly and smacked a fist into her open hand. “If anyone comes for you, Rubes, I won’t let them take you. I’ll gut ‘em first.”

“I’m sure Ruby’s not being hunted,” Ren said. “Besides, you can’t gut people, Nora. You don’t even have a knife.”

“Lend me StormFlower, then!”

“No.”

“Sorry for the trouble, miss…?” said the sheriff, who met them outside the jailhouse.

“Oh, Ruby. Ruby Rose. Nice to meet you madam sheriff,” said Ruby, who was maybe a tiny bit more nervous than she should have been, no thanks to her team.

But the sheriff merely snorted amiably and waved as if to dispel the awkward attempt at formality. “Miss Ruby, I wouldn’t bother you and your team, but I was told to keep a lookout for a young lady matching your description.”

Behind her, leather creaked. She had the sudden, terrifying certainty that it was Nora clenching a gloved fist, ready to break the nose – or other, more vital body part – of any would-be kidnapper. “O-oh? I wasn’t, um, aware there was someone looking for me.”

The sheriff shrugged. “Innkeeper down the way tells me there’s quite the nice young man staying here, and apparently he’s looking for you. Said something about being a distant relative, needs to talk to you about a death in the family.”

Ruby blinked. “I… see. You said, um, down the way?”

“Down the street, yeah, can’t miss the sign.” The sheriff tipped her hat. “If you aren’t the lady he’s looking for, tell him to come let me know, yeah? Otherwise have a nice day, miss.”

“Thank you, sheriff,” Jaune said, and he pulled at Ruby’s sleeve until they left. “Do you think he’s really your relative?”

Ruby shrugged. “I dunno, but I guess we better go find out.”

 

The innkeeper directed them to a room, whereupon they found someone who looked a little younger than Ruby herself, but was completely unfamiliar to her.

But he took one look at her and said, “Oh! You’re Ruby Rose?”

Nora leaned her arm on Ruby’s shoulder, looking at the boy suspiciously. “What’s it to ya, bub?”

The boy looked at the rest of the team RNJR and smiled shyly, if confusedly. He glanced at Ruby. “Is this your team? I thought you were all girls.”

Ruby blinked at him. “They’re, um, temporary teammates. Team RWBY is taking a brief hiatus while we work out our issues. And until we find Blake. And rescue Weiss from her shitty dad.”

The boy nodded, though he had a distant look like he was focusing on something else. Then he looked up at them and smiled again.

“That’s alright, I think it’ll be okay so long as you’re here, Ruby. Oh, I’m Oscar Pine, nice to meet you.”

They shook hands, and Oscar ushered them into the small, one bed room.

“Soooo,” Ruby said, kicking her feet – she’d been given the place of honor on the only chair in the room – “The sheriff said you were related to me? Is that true? I don’t really have that much extended family, and not to be rude but I totally don’t recognize you like, at all.”

Oscar shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, that was a little bit of a lie. I need to find someone, and you’re the only lead I have.”

Team RNJR looked at each other. Ruby turned back to Oscar.

“Who are you looking for?”

“Qrow Branwen. He should be following you, so if you can get him to stop stalking you and come out, I would really appreciate it. I’m supposed to ask him about a cane…?”

 

Oscar perked up and pointed at a tree in the forest.

“Oh! That might be him.” He took a hard left off the path, skirting around some bushes and disappearing into the forest.

“Oscar, no, you’re gonna get lost,” called out Ruby mournfully behind him, but Oscar was distracted by the lone black bird flying through the air.

“Hello, Mister Qrow?” He called, trudging through the underbush. He didn’t actually think it was very likely he’d found their missing Huntsman, but it was worth a shot. Ozpin said Qrow would be alone, after all – _he’s a veritable lone wolf_ , he’d said, chuckling. _No, he’s a crow_ , Oscar had shot back, because he enjoyed puns and thought Ozpin’s choice of people to bestow shapeshifting powers on was rather funny.

“Hello, is that you, Mister Qrow? I really do need to talk to you.”

But the bird flew away, winging off through the trees, and soon enough Oscar got tired of chasing after it and sat down on a big log. These forests were nothing like the woods he’d known back home – no glorified wind breakers, these trees, but great old things, with thick canopies and a thicker underbrush. It was nice, though, so Oscar closed his eyes and tilted his head up to feel the filtered sunlight on his face.

After a few minutes, he heard something move next to him – wings flapping, the faintest rustle of wood. He turned his head agonizingly slowly, slitted open one eye. There was a black bird perched on a branch of his log, a glossy black blob of feathers settled down to watch him with beady little eyes.

Oscar kept his eye slitted, his breathing even, thinking of a trick he’d watched other farm children try to pull off a long time ago. A cruel trick, but then again when the crows got bold enough the farmers would sometimes go out to shoot them, or so the older boys liked to claim to justify their game. You just had to be slow, and careful, and _very_ lucky…

With speed surprising even himself, Oscar’s hand whipped out and he grabbed the bird straight off its perch. The creature struggled, of course, cawing indignantly, but Oscar didn’t think he was squeezing hard enough to hurt – hoped to all the gods he wasn’t.

“Hello?” He said, bringing the bird closer to meet its gaze. “It’s okay, you’re okay. Are you Qrow Branwen? It’s only, there’s quite a lot going on—”

The bird started to – _shift_ , within his hand, flesh moving like soft putty. Oscar shrieked and tossed it away from him, watching with wide eyes as the bird grew outward and upward, an explosion of black – and red – and white – and then there was a blade at his throat.

Oscar flinched and closed his eyes reflexively, cold steel kissing his skin when he gulped. He had the familiar sensation of someone-there-I-can’t-see, which he thought was his unknown assailant, until a foreign surge of fear had his hand reaching for empty air where his cane should’ve been.

Then both their fear was carefully tempered, not repressed but tamed to serve a type of keen intent he’d never felt before – _sword at my throat,_ _unarmed_ _,_ _a_ _ura’s too low,_ _not a_ _Grimm_ – and Ozpin opened Oscar’s eyes.

And blinked. “Oh…”

Raven Branwen glared at him, lip curled. He sat there, tense and conflicted, until after a moment she withdrew her sword slowly – keeping the blade’s edge against his throat the whole while, leaving a long stinging papercut in her wake. She sheathed the sword briskly and stepped forward, uncomfortably far into his personal space, the black mane of her hair spilling over her shoulders and tickling Oscar’s face as she loomed.

“If you _ever_ ,” she growled, “tell another living soul what you’ve just done, I will hunt you down and end you slowly. Understand?”

He nodded, jerkily, wide-eyed. Raven huffed and stood up, a portal forming behind her. She was already halfway into it when she turned and leveled him with another glare, strange light reflecting oddly off her eyes and the metal of her scabbard.

“And tell my idiot brother that if he _ever_ gives me cause to be mistaken for him again , I will _beat_ the bird out of him, misfortune be damned.”

She passed fully into the portal and vanished, the portal sucked up behind her like the errant train of a skirt pulled through a doorway.

He waited, breath held, for a full fifteen seconds to make sure she was gone. Then Ozpin howled with laughter and didn’t stop until Oscar was left with the stitch in his side.

 

He – well, accurately, both of them – took great pleasure in watching Qrow choke on a mouthful of cheap booze when he told the story. And then it turned out Qrow actually was choking, thanks to his semblance, so Ozpin talked Oscar through the Heimlich maneuver.

“You know, when you said I’d gain access to lifetimes of knowledge by having your soul merge with mine,” Oscar said, idly wishing Ozpin hadn’t left his weapon and his schemes in the hands of a man who smelled quite so rank, “I was thinking more along the lines of, like, lost historical secrets and advanced auric techniques, not basic first aid.”

“And I did not anticipate that _you’d_ teach _me_ how to snatch a bird out of thin air,” Ozpin said cheerfully. “It’s exactly as I thought – you’re going to be a very interesting person to be, Mister Pine.”

It sounded a teensy bit less creepy than it had before. Oscar smiled ruefully, but not insincerely. “Thank you, Professor Ozpin. Maybe next incarnation we’ll have worked our way up to eagles.”


End file.
